The Hindu Business Line : Breakthrough in energy, water-saving technologies in rice, wheat

Tech transformation
3 million hectares of wheat area in South Asia was covered under zero or reduced tillage technologies during Rabi 2005.
IRRI has developed aerobic, zero-tilled, direct-seeded rice that do not require any transplanting. Through this, you save 35-40 per cent irrigation water without yield penalty

New Delhi , June 25

Energy and water-saving cropping technologies appear to be finally making some headway. The fact that this transformation is taking place in mainstream crops such as rice and wheat is added cause for optimism. According to Dr Raj K. Gupta of the Mexico-headquartered International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), over three million hectares of wheat area in South Asia was covered under zero or reduced tillage technologies during Rabi 2005, compared to just 1,000 hectares in 2000. Of this, roughly 2.2 million hectares were in the Indo-Gangetic plain, mainly covering the rice-wheat belt of Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, and 0.7 million hectares in Pakistan's Punjab province.

Zero-tillage for wheat

"This is nothing short of a new Green Revolution underway", claimed Dr Gupta at a joint press meet of the 15 global farm research institutes under the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) here. Zero-tillage basically does away with the repeated ploughing and planking operations that farmers normally undertake between harvesting of paddy and preparing the seed bed for planting the subsequent wheat crop. Conventional tillage typically involves 10-12 tractor operations that consume up to 60 litres of diesel per hectare.

In zero-tillage, farmers directly sow wheat after harvesting paddy, using a specially designed `zero-till' machine, without undertaking any ploughing. All they do is to irrigate the standing crop a few days before harvesting. The paddy crop is harvested near to the ground so that the leftover stubble is not more than six inches in height. Wheat is then directly sown after 2-3 days by the zero-till machine using the residual moisture.

Advantages

"Another big advantage of this technology is that there is no three week interval between paddy harvesting and wheat planting. This helps in timely sowing, which, in turn, raises yields since the farmer gets 35 kg per hectare of wheat for every extra day the crop remains on the field. The total cost saving from zero tillage works out to over Rs 2,500 per hectare", Dr. Gupta noted.

IRRI technologies

The Manila-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) is developing similar cutting-edge water-saving technologies for rice. "Normally, paddy has to be transplanted within 25 days after nursery raising. We are now field-testing two drought-tolerant varieties in Hazaribagh and Raipur -- DGI 75 and DSL 104-1 — where farmers can transplant even 60-day-old seedlings. They can yield up to two tonnes per hectare under severe drought, 3.7 tonnes under moderate drought and five tonnes under full irrigation", said Dr Himanshu Pathak, Senior Associate Scientist, IRRI. Moreover, IRRI has identified major genes affecting drought tolerance on rice chromosomes 5, 6, 8 and 12. "We have used marker-aided breeding and genetic engineering tools to transfer these genes to our existing high yielding varieties, including IR-72. These new less water-dependent varieties will reach the farmer in 4-5 years time. Also, we have developed aerobic, zero-tilled, direct-seeded rice that do not require any transplanting. Through this, you save 35-40 per cent irrigation water without yield penalty", he added.

"There is no dearth of technologies available under the CGIAR system. What we need is effective public policy to take these to the field", noted Dr William Dar, Director-General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Hyderabad.

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